A. Smith Bowman is a distillery out of Virginia owned by the Sazerac Company. From what I've read, the Buffalo Trace distillery ships tankers of their low rye white dog to Bowman who then redistill it two more times. I imagine most of that product ends up in their John Bowman Small Batch and Single Barrel bourbons, the latter of which I think is pretty good. A few times a year Bowman will also put out some sort of limited edition under the Abraham Bowman line that in years past saw national distribution but these days is more often restricted to Virginia and nearby markets. Here today we have one such Abraham Bowman release from back in 2014 that is a bourbon infused with chopped Madagascar vanilla beans for 24 months. According to a press release it spent a total of 7 years aging in a barrel.
No Age Statement; 45% ABV; Distilled 4-16-07, Bottled 11-03-14; $70 (2014)
Nose: Very subtle, soft, and thin. As expected, vanilla is very predominate and is masking most other typical wood, spice, or corn notes.
Taste: It tastes a little more like bourbon than the nose but the vanilla notes are even more forward now. There is a little woodiness and the proof is finally coming through with some heat but it's really hard to get past all the sweets. It tastes like 90 proof vanilla extract.
Thoughts: It's not really offensive but too soft, thin, and way too sweet for me to get into it. I can't quite get my head around who thought this was a good idea. Vanilla is already such a strong component of Bourbon so why would you infuse it with more? This isn't the worst Abraham Bowman I've ever had (the gingerbread beer wears that crown) but it's certainly near the bottom.
Rating: D+
Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.
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